


with my three wishes clutched in her hand

by Simply8Steps



Category: Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Gen, Mention of attempted suicide, canon-typical angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-13
Updated: 2017-06-13
Packaged: 2018-11-13 13:29:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,730
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11186094
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Simply8Steps/pseuds/Simply8Steps
Summary: AU - Step 1: You say, "We need to talk."





	with my three wishes clutched in her hand

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted at LJ on 05/02/2011 due to inspiration from the bsg_epics community from the "three wishes" discussion post. Expect spoilers for the entire show. This was my first attempt at really trying to pin down Dee's and Felix's voices.

_I. that she be spared the pain  
  
Clump… clump-shffff… clump…_ He could not believe that he had left the logs Hoshi had given him in the locker room. It wasn’t all that far, but any distance seemed stretched beyond reach as he turned to struggle back in. The ache in his missing limb pulsing upwards with each movement of the body swinging forward. Strengthening his arm muscles the frak. Doctor Cottle didn’t do optimism very well, and Gaeta preferred it that way.   
  
Later he would thank the doctor who first invented prosthetics for that noisy leg (he didn’t have any belief in the gods to thank).   
  
Later when he walks in to see Dee paused in the motion of bringing her sidearm up to her head.   
  
Later when his eyes widen to make sure he is seeing everything, is seeing what he is seeing before he lurches forward in his crutches and unwieldy new limb to crash into her, sidearm falling and sliding away, out of his relieved sight.  
  
Later when Seelix rushes in after the crash to see the two tangled on the floor, and he could say, “Damn leg. Sorry, everything’s fine.”   
  
He means it for both Seelix and Dee. He still means it when he pulls the both of them to sit up together, leaning against the lockers, and continues to mean it even as the tears finally leak from Dee’s blank visage and he whispers it to her, into her soft hair still down from her night out with Lee, and, he realized now, her send-off to the fleet and the man she had loved.   
  
He is going to miss his shift in CIC, but he knows that Hoshi will cover for him, so he sits and listens to Dee silently cry her devastation and disappointment, as polluted rain leaks through layers and layers of gravel and sand and soil before becoming clean ground water. He listens as she cries for the destruction that some thought they had left behind four years ago. (Allied with the cylons? _How?_ )   
  
When her tears lessen (there had been no sounds to them), they just continue to sit in silence.   
  
_I trust you. I’m here. I’m your friend, and you’re not alone in this. You don’t have to say anything, no need to explain.  
  
I’m here._  
  
“I hear them, and I don’t know what to say back.” He glances down to meet Dee’s eyes as she stares back like a child plaintively, the child that had never expected _any_ of this to happen. “The ship captains – they are always asking, and I hear them. All the time, and I don’t know what to say back.”  
  
He turns away. “You stay there, stay _here_ for them. Sometimes… questions don’t have answers, and sometimes, we don’t even need them answered.”  
  
The silence stretches out before them.   
  
“Thanks Felix.”  
  
  
  
 _II. when she finds love… may it always stay true_  
  
They return to their posts together, and when she picks up her headset, her hand is shaking. No one notices except Felix. Most of the others are too lost in their despondency. The Admiral is nowhere to be seen, and Lee has already told her of the President’s state of mind.  
  
And suddenly, she realizes that something has to be done before there are more like her, except they might not be lucky enough to have a friend clomping towards them to pull them from the edge. She realizes that maybe the ones who have led them this far need to hear it for themselves as well.  
  
Anastasia – Dee – Dualla has always been mostly just a voice to the people, and it is still true. All she has is her voice.   
  
She flicks open the channels on the communications panel in front of her, takes a deep breath.  
  
“Attention, this is Galactica.”  
  
Everyone froze in place in the CIC, staring at her, wondering if she had lost her mind. Felix smiles at her (his smile is a smile as haunted as it may be).  
  
“A-as most of you have probably heard, the Earth we found… the thirteenth colony is already gone, and w-we may have lost one dream, the only dream we may have all shared. I lost it too. A dream of a mythical planet, a paradise to call home, and i-if you’re like me, maybe you have thought about ending it all too, this life that is barely a life, but… I’m still here. I’m still standing here, and there has to be a reason for that.  
  
All of us, we’re still here, still alive, and as long as we have that – being here, maybe that is enough. More than any prophecy.” Yes, she still remembers Apollo’s bright, bitter words, and maybe, that’s just the right mix to get them through. “We still have reason to believe, not in the gods, but in ourselves, in the people around us who have gotten us this far.”  
  
Dee sees the Admiral, his face dark and swollen from drink, out the corner of her eyes. He is listening. “Maybe we already have what we need… Right here. Than- thank you.”  
  
She flicks the channels shut and turns to salute the Admiral, who, in the interim, has moved in front of her station. She feels every pair of eyes in the CIC on her. “I apologize, sir. I know that was out of line, but-“  
  
“Lieutenant Dualla…” In a softer rasp, his “thank you” was barely heard.  
  
  
  
 _III. have her, please, just one day wake_  
  
She was still staring at the small plant, leaves prickly and stubbornly resilient in her palm, when the soft tones of Lieutenant Dualla’s voice wafted off the speakers, her words grabbing hold of her hand as stubbornly as the ridges on the plant.   
  
_“We still have reason to believe, not in the gods, but in ourselves, in the people around us who have gotten us this far… Maybe we already have what we need… Right here. Than- thank you.”_  
  
Laura Roslin doesn’t know what to believe anymore, but she thinks that maybe there are some who do. Thank the…  
  
She closes her eyes.   
  
It may have only been minutes, or hours (she’d say days, but it is an exaggeration) later when the knocks sound at the hatch. Not quite loud, but persistent.   
  
She ignores it, but the hatch swings open anyway.  
  
“Thanks Lee, but are you sure we should… Maybe she is resting.”  
  
“No, it’s fine.” She could practically hear the awkward smile that wraps around those words. “That was quite the speech you made today by the way.”  
  
“I had help.”  
  
She sits up and watches as the young Lieutenant (how many have been just as young or younger – sent to die) steps reluctantly across the threshold followed by Lee. Both have files in their hands, and at first she wants to yell at them to get out. ‘Go away,’ the petulant child inside her wants to say, but she doesn’t, and she doesn’t know why. It was easier earlier to push Bill away. Push his worries away, but these two…  
  
 _Try using her rank._ So long ago, and yet, only just yesterday as well. _Madam President!_  
  
They see her on the floor and immediately rush forward to help her up, afraid that she may have collapsed or fallen there. ‘If only they knew…’  
  
“Madame President, are you alright?” It’s strange, Lieutenant Dualla’s voice had sounded so much closer on the comm than it does right now, right in front of her. Solid. That was the word. Her words were more solid when she didn’t need to face her.   
  
“I am fine.” She settles onto the couch they have led her toward, Lee’s eyes piercing as he looks at her, begging her not to disappoint. She’s afraid that it is all she has ever done. “Though, I was looking forward to lying there a bit longer.” The files they hand her are unopened on her lap, an oddity from the various times prior that Dualla has brought her documents, and she sees in the President’s face something that was never quite there before.   
  
It is quiet when it comes out. “Don’t you dare, M’am.”  
  
Laura is startled to attention by the words and tone, immediately – the cloak of authority slips on. “Excuse me?”  
  
“If I may speak, m’am?”  
  
A wry smile appears on her face. “Lieutenant, I am not your commanding officer. You may say whatever you like.”  
  
“But you are my President, m’am, and you’ve given up.”  
  
She couldn’t deny it. Lee is leaning against the bulkhead, observing silently.   
  
“I understand, m’am, I really do. You’re sick, you’re tired, and you feel like it is all your fault.”  
  
“And you deny it?”  
  
“Yes.”  
  
She is startled my by the firm declaration of that answer, and turns her eyes back down to her cold hands, clenched on top of the files.   
  
“You feel as if you have let us down, but you are letting us down now. The people need you, and instead, you have decided for them that they don’t. You wanted this to be it, so you could run away from it all, but you can’t. You know you can’t, but you just can’t admit it. You are the _President_. You took an oath, took a vow of office to lead us all the way, but you’re running away from it now… ”  
  
“Stop, Lieutenant… You have made your point.”  
  
Her eyes meet the girl’s, and what she sees there is a desperation that she knows she needs to understand. For the sake of the people. “Thank you for speaking your mind.” Her smile is weak, but it is a start.   
  
Lee settles down next to her, and his weight is a comfort, a reminder that she is not the end. “Now, explain. What are these?”  
  
The files in her hand open to the proposals, requests, and complaints already flying in. “Today’s just another day.”   
  
Dualla jumps at that but shakes off the question in her glance, readying a salute to leave.   
  
“Lieutenant, please wait. I’d like to hear your opinion of what is happening in the fleet, speak to me. What do you hear over the comm. traffic.”  
  
She is still insistent, that she could say, and Lee’s smile is an agreement of its own.   
  
“Are you sure, m’am?”  
  
“Yes. After all, we have to start somewhere.”  
  
  
  
Fin.

**Author's Note:**

> Lyrics are recognizable because they do not belong to me. They belong to the Fray (for all too apt lyrics) and the ingenious Bear McCreary's Gaeta's Lament. Also, several scenes are heavily drawn from some of my favorite moments with Dee.


End file.
